Identification of the sources of soil mercury (Hg) on the provincial scale is helpful for enacting effective policies to prevent further contamination and take reclamation measurements. The natural and anthropogenic sources and their contributions of Hg in Chinese farmland soil were identified based on a decision tree method. The results showed that the concentrations of Hg in parent materials ...

Human-driven land-use changes increasingly threaten biodiversity. In agricultural ecosystems, abandonment of former farmlands constitutes a major land-use shift. We examined the relationships between areas in which agriculture has been abandoned and the distribution records of threatened plant species across Japan. We selected 23 plant species that are currently identified as threatened but wer...

China is rapidly urbanizing and will inevitably face trade-offs between promoting economic growth through further urbanization and protecting fertile farmland against accelerated urban expansion. This paper presents how this dilemma is being addressed in one of the most rapidly urbanizing regions in China, the Pearl River Delta (PRD), by means of assessing urban growth and farmland dynamic, as ...

The present study analyzed road soils collected near the dismantling workshops of an e-waste recycling region in South China to determine the PBDE profiles. Farmland soils at a distance of about 2 km from the dismantling workshops were also collected to evaluate the potential dispersion and deposition of PBDEs in the surrounding environment. Total PBDE concentrations ranged from 191 to 9156 ng/...

and a dry, dusty climate where frequent air inversions can cause smoke to linger for days. While McCarthy admits he cannot prove that any particular patient has been injured by the smoke, he says his medical experience is persuasive. For example, he says, patients who travel during the burning season tell him, "As soon as I get out of Spokane, I feel better, and as soon as I get back, I feel wo...

The afforestation of abandoned farmland significantly influences soil organic carbon (OC). However, the dynamics between OC inputs after afforestation and the original OC are not well understood. To learn more about soil OC dynamics after afforestation of farmland, we measured the soil OC content in paired forest and farmland plots in Shaanxi Province, China. The forest plots had been establish...

This study aims to determine the accuracy level at which different forms of land degradation can be mapped from medium-resolution satellite data, and to assess how accurately degraded land can be detected from multi-temporal satellite images. Land degradation in the form of salinization and waterlogging in Tongyu County, western Jilin Province of Northeast China was mapped from Landsat TM and A...

The demand for agricultural products continues to grow rapidly, but further agricultural expansion entails substantial environmental costs, making recultivating currently unused farmland an interesting alternative. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to widespread abandonment of agricultural lands, but the extent and spatial patterns of abandonment are unclear. We quantified the extent...

The boom in food prices over the past 15 years and associated volatility in food prices has prompted relatively wealthy countries dependent on imports to renew their focus on policies to enhance food security. This has in turn prompted many of them to search for opportunities to secure food supply internationally. Coupled with a depressed yields in other assets such as equities and bonds, the f...

Monitoring the impact of current Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) management practices on future Ecosystem Services (ESs) provisioning has been emphasized because of the effect of such practices on ecological sustainability. We sought to model and predict the impacts of future LULC changes on subsequent changes in Ecosystem Service Value (ESV) in fragile environments undergoing complex LULC changes, ...